The sound of a police chopper circling overhead couldn’t silence the voices of hundreds gathered in Dorchester’s Ronan Park Friday night for a “Funk the Police” Juneteenth rally. 

Poetry and music echoed across the grassy field as members and allies of Mass Action Against Police Brutality sought to change the status quo of policing in Boston. The assembled group sought “justice for all” victims of police brutality, and in the process raised funds to send a delegation of Boston mothers to the National Mother’s March in Minneapolis next month. A statement released by organizers read:

Please contribute to send a Massachusetts delegation of Mothers and families who have lost loved ones to police violence to the National Mother’s March in Minneapolis against police violence by donating here

Mothers and families of victims of police violence took the stage to explain the pain inflicted upon them by cops who are supposed to protect them. 

“It’s time to make a change to how police interact with black people,” said Hope Coleman, who lost her son, Terrence Coleman, to a police shooting in October 2016. “It’s exhausting.”

“This problem is not new,” she added. “It exists in Boston, too, and this city has done nothing.”

Local bands and musicians played throughout the afternoon event, with people in the crowd cheering along and chanting, among other things, “Bad cops, bad cops. Whatcha gonna do when we come for you?” -Caitlin Faulds

This article was produced in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.

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